A majority of Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Bush/Cheney regime ended, but has it? Like the zombie banks, the era of government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich lives on, with massive transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich continuing, as beleaguered poor and middle class taxpayers bail out the banks we are told are too big to fail.
Unfortunately for those of us too small to succeed, the American dream has to be deferred as our children and grandchildren get saddled with the debt we are piling up in the hope that Main Street will be stimulated once the gamblers and bookies on Wall Street come clean and get paid off with more of our money. Unwitting taxpayers are angry they rewarded bonuses to the insiders who created a rigged casino and manufactured their own chips to bet the house then bring it down. But they have focused their outrage on only one thousandth of just one shakedown, AIG, while the real scandal is the “cash for trash” transfer of what’s left of the treasury to Wall Street’s big banks who will end stronger as Main Street gets boarded up.
This Robin Hood in reverse phenomenon is not new. It began when Ronald Reagan declared he was taking the handcuffs off the millionaires and putting them on the welfare queens. Since then wages have remained stagnant as working Americans have maintained their standard of living on credit from banks who get cheap money from the Fed they then loan back to us at usurious rates.
Meanwhile productivity has soared, with the benefits going to capital, not labor. Under George W. Bush the transfer of public money to private hands accelerated as lobbyists and revolving door Congressmen, cashing in on public service for private gain, captured Washington to the extent that most politicians today represent money, not people.
When Reagan cut taxes for the rich while rewarding the Military Industrial Complex with billions from the remaining overburdened poor and middle class taxpayers, the resulting deficits his budget director David Stockman warned him about ballooned. Reagan’s deficit also became an extra burden on those unfairly taxed, since the servicing of the resulting debt, which was largely owned by the rich, had to be paid by the poor.
About the only voice of outrage back then in the Congress came from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who railed against this double jeopardy. Mercifully, Moynihan did not live to see what George W. Bush managed to pull off after Clinton paid down the debt and left a surplus for Bush.
With a self-proclaimed mandate from his “War on Terror”, Bush opened up the treasury to the usual suspects and then some. In a spree of corporate socialism he invited crony contractors to embed themselves at the government trough, in effect taking money from the Post Office to subsidize Fed Ex and UPS. However these “Beltway Bandits” who hung up their shingles did not have to deliver services, as long as they offered private jets to their political patrons. Meanwhile the rest of us have become POW’s in the class war Bush successfully waged against America’s poor and middle class.
So here we are, America the screwed, and we only have ourselves to blame since you get the government you deserve. Now the question is, does the populist rage out there get focused on political action with millions phoning, emailing and marching on Washington, or do we sullenly pay up and hope the stimulus works? The last time this happened, it was not solved by the top-down largesse of FDR, but rather from the bottom-up outrage of the American people that was felt in Washington, forcing politicians to act with a New Deal. We’ve had a bad deal for the last thirty years, now it’s time for a fair deal.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am
“since you get the government you deserve.”????? The Elites place in the presidency who they wish to continue their NWO. We have not chosen our own gov in decades. This includes sock-puppet Obama.
Dyne Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Wouldn’t sock monkey-puppet be a more accurate description? But then again that’s an insult to monkeys as they don’t need teleprompters to communicate with their own.
meanjean Reply:
March 27th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
That’s great, I’ll be laughing all day.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Same people, same money, same b.s speechs.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
This current force against this government is not working as we would need it to.
We need a new force based on principles that no one from the past has used.
We need to change our perspective of this life in order to never be frightened by people who only believe themselves to be powerful.
We should never be frightened about anyone, we should each be a powerful force for an individual good instead of simply following a group in search of imaginary security.
Why debate about all these things if life passes us with ease? It is this present moment that matters to all of us!
Why do we not start the rebellion now? The rebellion against ourselves, against everything that we have subconsciously placed inside of this mind that is within us.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“the era of government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich lives on, with massive transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich continuing, as beleaguered poor and middle class taxpayers bail out the banks we are told are too big to fail.”
There seems to be something far worse than just the transfer of wealth, including the creation of limitless watered down money where no one really knows how much value is left. They have put most of the best land in the National and State Parks, that supposedly the people own, but have to jump through hoops with permits and restrictions galore to even look at. I am guessing that was just an excuse to keep it for the plutocrates.
If we come out of this depression with any freedom left, it will take more hard nosed people like the former Navy Officer Fitzgerald who is pushing for a criminal investigation of Obama as an ineligible President and Comander in Chief, and not letting Obama’s fraud against the Constitution slide. Supposedly his case has traction. Orly Taitz is his attorny.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
You schmucks better get used to laying down on your yellow bellies at the alter of the blue-gum baboon. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah……America is going down!
Tom Reply:
March 28th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I think that seneca264 is unaware of something even bigger: if America goes down, so does the rest of the world. Rembember, it’s not a New American Order, it’s a New WORLD Order!! ALL of the soveriegn nations of the world have to die (according to the global elite) in order for the NWO to raise it’s satanic head. EVERY economy is dying. The Deutsche Mark, the French Franc, the Italian Lire, etc. have all died so that the Euro could replace it. Soon, the Amican Dollar will be killed so that the Amero will replace IT. The, THOSE currency’s will be replaced as they get “merged” by the “hostile takeover’s” until all that’s left is ONE world currency. By that time, you either will or will not have seen the light.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Oh yes, I am very much aware of the “big plan” Tom. That is why we are going down. We will not be able to stop it.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:38 am
My fellow on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came here.